Montoya tops Phoenix Cup test

The Colombian, recovering from a tough weekend at Las Vegas where he struggled to match his testing pace, set a fastest lap of 27.385 seconds at an average speed of 131.459 mph, at the wheel of his No. 42 Ganassi Dodge.

Montoya was the only driver able to break the 131 mph barrier on the second day of the test, improving over a tenth of a second from his best time in the morning session of Monday where he had been second fastest.

The Ganassi driver expects that this time his speed can translate into the race weekend at Phoenix in April, as temperatures during this week's test should be more similar to what they can expect in a month's time.

"Here is pretty good," Montoya said. "Here it's about normal (temperatures). We ran pretty good this morning. As it gets hotter, always gets slicker, but that's pretty normal. I think what's good about where we're testing now, the weather is a little bit more similar than when we run normally. I think that's going to help."

DEI's Paul Menard, who had been fastest in the first session on Monday ahead of Montoya, finished the test with the second quickest lap, nearly a tenth off the Colombian's benchmark while Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray was third nearly a tenth and a half adrift.

Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon both ran during the two days of testing despite their big crashes last Sunday at Las Vegas. Gordon, who won nearly a year ago at Phoenix, said he was still feeling sore from his accident but had no issues while getting back behind the wheel.

"I feel like I was doing crunches all day because my stomach muscles are really sore and they say it's just from the pulling of the muscles and everything," Gordon said.

"It doesn't seem to affect me today. I'm kind of sore all over. Little things keep popping up. My elbow is what hurt me the most last night. I must have hit it on the seat when I hit the wall; I think it came over and there's a part of the seat that is not padded and we've learned from those situations, so we're going to pad that area."

AJ Allmendinger, who won't be competing next weekend after it was announced that Mike Skinner would replace him, was among those testing over the two days, setting the second fastest time in the final session.

Meanwhile Michael Waltrip Racing gave some seat time to rookie Michael McDowell in Dale Jarrett's car.

As in every NASCAR open test, teams were allowed to use their data acquisition systems, which are banned over race weekends, allowing them to learn more about the haracteristics of the new car on the short tracks.

"Yes we've competed here (with the new car) but during a competitive event the teams aren't allowed to use all their data acquisition and telemetry collection devices that they use during a test," said NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby.

"The teams have tested here and now they've got a good road map of the race track, travels, what this shocks do and they'll be able to go home now and enter that into a computer they use for simulations and apply to more than just Phoenix."

Sprint Cup series teams will meet again this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway for round four of the championship.